A review by justinh94
An Editor's Burial: Journals and Journalism from the New Yorker and Other Magazines by David Brendel

2.0

A curated collection of The New Yorker and The New Yorker-adjacent writings that inspired Wes Anderson to make The French Dispatch, An Editor’s Burial is a sprawling, well-written slog. It does contain a few fascinating stories (most of which are movingly humorous obituaries of New Yorker editors by New Yorker writers), as well as several of the most boring ones ever put to paper. As a companion to the (very good) French Dispatch movie it’s almost wholly inessential, except perhaps to highlight just how inventive Wes really is if he was able to spin that cinematic cotton candy out of this literary porridge. Reader, I came as close as I ever do to closing the book at page 50 and never looking back, and ultimately only stuck it out because it so happens that I write a little superfluously and these writers all had a way with concise wit I could do well to learn from. And I sincerely hope I did, or else this really won’t have been worth the time.